“Angus’s healer called Angus to tell him he’d been summoned to our hotel room,” Charles said. “Just after I felt your need.”
Anna remembered the power she’d summoned to shut Tom up-and his conviction that Charles would feel it. Leah, the Marrok’s mate, sometimes used Bran’s clout when Bran wasn’t even there. Evidently, Anna could do the same thing.
“Yes, well.” Anna looked around and took in a deep breath. That secrecy spell, the one the vampires used, had some odd effects on the combatants, too, she remembered, enforcing the need for secrecy. She should have called Charles right away.
“I’d like it if you’d come here, too.” She’d like it a lot. “Maybe Angus-but no one else. Tom’s been hurt pretty badly.”
“Badly enough the rest of his pack needs to stay away,” said Charles coolly. Her sense of him had faded with his urgency, and she wasn’t sure she should trust that coolness. The drop from violence to calm had been too fast.
“Right,” she answered, though it hadn’t been a real question. “Moira and I got him back here-but I didn’t realize how badly he was bleeding. There’s probably a blood trail-”
“No,” said Moira firmly, though she was as white as the sheet she was sitting on-as white as it was because they were both covered in blood. “I took care of the blood.”
Anna had learned enough about witchcraft to know that she didn’t want to know any more. The alert beast inside her accepted, provisionally, that they were safe.
“You heard that?”
“I did.”
“So we’re safe in the room. Tom’s not mortally wounded-I don’t think…” The room abruptly smelled different. “He’s changing.”
“Best thing for him to do, if he can,” said Charles. “You stay back from him. Moira should keep him calm enough that he’s safe to be around. I’m coming-and I’ll call Angus and tell him that if he values his second, he’ll call off the rest of the pack. I’ll be there in a couple of minutes, and you can give me the whole story then.” Her phone stopped making noise, so she decided that he must have ended the call.
“Have you been around Tom when he changes before?” Anna asked Moira softly.
“Yes,” said the witch.
“Good.” She let herself sink into the chair opposite the bed. “Just sit still. It’ll take a while longer this time-and changing when you hurt really sucks. He’ll be vile-tempered when he comes out of it. Maybe not really himself, not for a while. Give him a little time before you touch him. He’ll probably let you know when he can bear it.”
“They almost killed us,” Moira said. “If I could have seen them-”
“That blast of sunlight was impressive,” Anna told her. “Next time we’re attacked by vampires, I’ll cower behind you and shout what they are into your ear.” She paused. “It’s a good thing you were with us. We’d have lost on our own. Someone knew a great deal about Tom.” She remembered the dog pile of vampires who’d been trying to kill him-virtually ignoring her and Moira. “But they discounted you.”
“Why would vampires attack us?” asked Moira. “Oh, I know they aren’t friendly-but they are practical. Attacking Charles’s mate is anything but practical.”
“Someone paid them, I expect,” Anna said tiredly. “Someone they were pretty certain could and would keep Charles away from them. Someone who knew we’d be out shopping today.” She looked down at her hands as Tom growled and wheezed with the difficulty of the change. Then she said the last bit slowly, “Someone who could give them pack magic to mask the noise and the bodies until they were done.
“You think one of the werewolves is behind this?”
“I don’t know.” But she was afraid she did.
Tom completed his change. His breath came out in harsh, groaning pants. His fur was chocolate brown except where a silvery scar wound around his muzzle-and he was nearly as big as Charles in wolf shape. Charles was a very big wolf.
Moira reached out and touched his neck, and the wolf lunged, sending Anna to her feet. But before she did anything stupid, he settled again, his head in Moira’s lap.
Someone knocked on the door, and it wasn’t Charles.
SIX
CHARLES forced himself to walk. There was no hurry. Tom would have been a problem under other circumstances. But his mate was there to keep him under control. And even mad from pain and weakness, Tom wouldn’t hurt an Omega.
He was off balance: Anna’s fault. He wasn’t used to panicking, and it put him on edge.
There were very few people he’d cared for enough to panic over-and most of them were long dead and forever beyond need of his aid. His father and his brother Samuel he could usually trust to take care of themselves.
Anna left him vulnerable.
She’d said she was fine, and she meant it. He’d heard the stress of survival in her voice, but she was safe for now. And Tom would need calm to deal with his wounds, not some adrenaline-jacked wolf who wasn’t one of his pack. But even at a slow, steady pace, Brother Wolf fought against his control, growing more upset, not less.
And the human half wasn’t far behind. Someone had tried to hurt his Anna, and he hadn’t been there to prevent it.
A young man walking in the other direction jerked his head to stare at Charles-and quickly dropped his gaze when his eyes met Charles’s. Only then did Charles realize he was growling softly.
He stopped, sucked in a deep breath-and hesitated as the air he’d taken told him something… unusual. Something missing. Something like the usual concentration of city smells.
He stood on a wide swath of pavement that was as clean as it had been the day it was poured. No visible garbage wasn’t really strange, not in Seattle, where the rain washed the sidewalks on a regular basis. But no garbage, no scent, no anything, that was odd. Odd enough to allow him to hold off the frantic need to find Anna and assure himself she was fine, if only for just long enough to think.
Tom’s witch had dealt with the blood trail, she’d said, and he was willing to bet that he was looking at the results: a wobbling stretch of walk two shades whiter than the cement around it. It was still a trail for anyone who wanted to follow it-though he supposed a blind woman couldn’t know that. And it was a lot better than the blood that would have sent a slew of human police to the hotel.
He could follow it to the hotel-or he could go hunting. He stood very still and consulted Brother Wolf. Then they turned away from the hotel.
Yes, said Brother Wolf, at one with his human half.
Blood and flesh would be welcome. Anna waited for them. She’d be safe with Angus in a few minutes. Angus had taken his car to the hotel.
So there was time to feed. To rid them both, him and Brother Wolf, of the anger so they could regain their balance.
It wasn’t long, only a few blocks, until the unnaturally whitened sidewalk returned to its normally dirty state. Despite the rain, Anna’s scent lingered in the air.
It was full dark, though the hour wasn’t late-a little after six, he thought. It had been twenty minutes since Anna had drawn upon his power, fifteen since he talked to her. The shadows wouldn’t have been so dark then, but still dark enough for a lot of the nastier things to come hunting.
He stepped back into the clean space and looked around. A blackened bit of cloth, wet and dirty, a plastic bag that spilled two pairs of women’s shoes with another shoe, hot pink and scorched, several feet away. A little casting about on the edges of the witch’s spells-and he smelled vampire.
Vampires in Seattle attacking wolves. He considered it-and clenched his fists at the thought of his Anna going up against bloodsuckers.
The cloth smelled of nothing. The lone pink shoe hadn’t been so thoroughly caught in the witch’s cleaning spell. When lifted to his nose, it smelled faintly of burning flesh and vampire.